Japanese Internment Camps

During World War II, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which made citizens scared that Japan would soon attack the United States. This produced tragic results for Japanese American because frightened citizens soon began to suspect that the Japanese Americans would help their country and attack from the inside. In 1942, the War Department called for the mass evacuation of all Japanese Americans in Hawaii. General Delos Emmons stopped this because 37% of the people in Hawaii were Japanese Americans and evacuating them would destroy the economy in Hawaii. Soon, however,  1% of the Japanese American population in Hawaii (1,444 people) was forced into internment camps. 

Internment did not stop in Hawaii. On the West Coast,  prejudice began too grow. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt sign an order requiring the removal and relocation of all Japanese Americans in California and parts of Oregon, Arizona, and  Washington. Two-thirds of the people rounded up were Nisei (second generation Japanese, born in America). Many Nisei joined the armed to fight in World War II and did not have to go to the Internment Camps. No charges were filed on the Japanese Americans, but they were forced to sell their homes, businesses, and all their belongings for less than their value. 

Many Japanese Americans fought for their freedom with no luck. After the war, however, the Japanese American Citizens League pushed the government to return the belongings of all those sent to the camps. Congress authorized the spending of $38 million for the cause ( less than a tenth of their actual losses). In 1978, payment of reparations for each individual that went to the camps was paid and in 1988, every Japanese American that was relocated was paid $20,000. 

In the end, what was done to the Japanese Americans was a nation embarrassment and, hopefully, was a good learning experience for America as well.

-Alice W

Japanese Internment Camps

Japanese Internment Camps

On February 19th, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Under this order, 120,000 people of Japanese descent living in the United States were removed from their homes and placed in internment camps. Roosevelt claimed that this was essential to protecting the nation from spies, sabotage, and espionage. Two thirds of the people detained were American citizens, and more than half were children. None had done anything to show disloyalty towards the nation. In some cases, families were broken up and separated in different camps. The only ten people convicted of espionage were all Caucasian.

The Japanese were given just 48 hours to fully evacuate their homes. Consequently, they were easy prey for fortune hunters who offered them far less than market price for their possessions. They were housed in barracks and had to use communal areas for washing, laundry, and eating. Sometimes internees died from inadequate medical care and the high level of emotional stress they suffered. Those taken to camps in desert areas had to cope with the extremes of temperature.As a result, life in the internment camps was difficult.

All internees over the age of seventeen were asked two important questions:

1.) Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty whenever ordered? (Females were asked if they were willing to volunteer for Army Nurse Corps.)

2.) Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attacks by foreign or domestic forces and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign, power, or organization?

It is supremely ironic that the internees were taken from their homes and imprisoned by the United States government, but still asked to serve the United States if the need arose.

By: Derek Nielsen and Aston Sun